


Expository Pronouns

by Jdkwinxgrl



Category: Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Gen, Pronouns, symbrock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 19:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16687792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jdkwinxgrl/pseuds/Jdkwinxgrl
Summary: Venom's pronouns. It doesn't have to be hard, guys.





	Expository Pronouns

The thing about pronouns, is that everyone always defends the use of them, but never really has a good reason why they use those pronouns. Characters that are particularly polarizing regarding pronouns is Frisk or Chara from Undertale. You’re the main character, so nobody ever has a chance to use your third-person perspective pronouns canonically, and everyone in the fandom has their prefered pronoun for Frisk or Chara. I personally like looking at it from the perspective of Frisk or Chara being made to be a self insert and I use “they”. I’ve heard people say “he” or “she” because the person thinks the protagonist looks like that gender. In the recent Game Theory video on Deltarune, you can hear a manner of “he” and “she” being thrown around, possibly to reflect the unsteady gender of the character, (even if Kris is a mainly male name, it can also be short for “Kristine”). Undertale is about choices, and who you are/how you play the game determines whether you play as Frisk or Chara. In the end, it really doesn’t matter what pronouns you use, but whether or not you’re able to fully insert yourself within that character. In the end, you’re not playing as Frisk or Chara, because you’re playing as  _ you _ . 

Venom’s pronouns is something that matters only if you’re talking about Identity. TL,DR: “they” or “it” is used in the comics, “he” in the movie (although if your fanfic is based on the movie, using “they” or “it” is still cool), the symbiote itself doesn’t have a gender/reproduces asexually, and it’s generally encouraged to use “They” or “It” because most of your fanfic will be Venom and Eddie talking to each-other and the book might just become a sea of “he”s.

PART 1: Venom is a what?

(Venom’s pronoun will be consistently “it” from here on out). As previously mentioned, it doesn't necessarily matter whether or not you use “he” or “it” or “they” if your story doesn’t tie into relationships or identity. Even if both “it” or “they” is less defined than “he”, there’s still a clear distinction between “they” or “it”. (“They” is a general/neutral pronoun, Idc if you find it grammatically incorrect). “They” is still more human than “it”. “It” is usually an object, something less than human, while “they” can be used to humans in a conversation. 

You’ll notice in the Venom movie, Carlton Drake loves to “save humanity”, though when he tells his workers to take Maria’s corpse away, he refers to “getting ‘it’ out of here”; which does not go unnoticed by scientist Dora. Now, there’s a case to be argued that there’s nothing wrong with calling a corpse an “it”, due to the natural detachment we should have from a vessel where a human soul no longer exists, BUT, because of the movie’s themes, it’s more likely used to emphasize how selfish Carlton really is. Maria was never human to him, just another failed test subject. 

Speaking of Maria, there’s this fic called “A Creature From The Stars”, where she’s the Venom symbiote’s host, and when she introduces the Venom symbiote to Eddie for the first time, Eddie calls Venom an “it”. She’s quick to correct him, however:

_ ““It – it likes me?” Eddie replied, dumbfounded, pointing a finger at his chest. “It…likes me?” _

_ “Don’t refer to them as ‘it’, Eddie, it’s rude. They like you. And wanted to meet you.”” _

The story is about Maria, a homeless person, so it makes sense that she’d use “they” for the Venom symbiote due to the fact that privileged society tends to dehumanize and disassociate from the homeless. She’s the Venom symbiote’s friend, so she’ll treat it like one. “He” can also serve the same purpose, with the only add on being that the writer is definitely trying to pursue a narrative where the Venom symbiote has some form of masculinity. 

I personally use “it” because the Venom symbiote is genderless and not human. This fact certainly takes away some depth and personification from the Venom symbiote, due to our brains naturally seeing Venom as an object or not an actual character because of this pronoun. 

PART 2: “The Royal We”

This is where you all mess up, okay. Where everybody messes up. The Venom symbiote does not use “we” to refer to itself. It uses ‘We’ to refer to both Eddie and itself. Say it with me again,  **_Venom symbiote does not use “we” to refer to itself as a singular entity_ ** **.** Venom, in terms of the symbiote and Eddie working together to do a thing, is a “we”. “We are Venom”, is literally said in the movie by both Eddie and the symbiote. 

There’s a lot to be said about the “we” in the movie. The fact that Eddie starts using “we” when he barely understands the symbiote inside him or their relationship; or the fact that it’s used to show how horrible of a pair Riot and Carlton Drake are when Riot uses “I” and Carlton corrects it to “we” – just, big oof. Just from these two pair’s use of “we”, it’s easy to see what type of relationship they have respectively. 

As I said before, usually I champion the use of “it” or “they” to distinguish the Venom symbiote from Eddie in a fanfiction, so I’m much more lax with the use of “Venom” to refer to just the symbiote, and not the two together as a working unit. If you’re going to focus on the relationship of Eddie trying to cope with the fact that he’s gonna have to kill people, then yeah, I highly reccomend you using “Venom” in terms of a unit because Eddie will try to distance himself from this bad behaviour, and thus the identity of “Venom” as a whole. But, the fanfiction example earlier uses “Venom” to refer to just the symbiote because what better way than to humanize someone or something, than to give it a name? Venom itself says it doesn’t remember the names of all its previous hosts because he couldn’t form long lasting and meaningful connections with them. It’s all about those themes, man.

_ (oh my gosh, seriously, read this fic. Like, it’s really neat how Maria herself is homeless, and yet she is probably the most well suited home/host to Venom than all of its previous hosts- Is this a form of irony? Juxtaposition? Idk just read it, I could write a whole seperate chapter based on the author's use of pronouns, honestly). _

But, honestly, just remember, _ **Venom symbiote does not use “we” to refer to itself alone as a singular entity.** _ ****I know I can't force anybody to write this way, or really insult writers who've written Venom like that, yet I just wanted to throw this out into the abyss.


End file.
